A title? Really? How about “2020: Horror Story”?

Hiya, Internet! How is it going out there? In here, as in inside my home, my little flat, it is all good, everything is absolutely fine. But the second I go outside, for any reason at all, well I would not call it good or fine out there. We are still living in Level 3 Lockdown (that might be changing soon), yet what is that actually looking like…

I have to say it and I think anyone who cares for their loved ones, is concerned for public health or has any risk factors themselves, needs to acknowledge that right now in South Africa and specifically in Cape Town and the Western Cape, people don’t give a damn about covid-19. It may officially be Lockdown Level 3 but you may as well rename it Level 0 for the amount of compliance or effort people are putting in. You just walk outside of your door and most people are not wearing a mask, not just not wearing it properly (Bheki Cele-style) but not wearing it at all.

Then one was not meant to go out and exercise in groups, yet gaggles of humanity all bunched together not wearing masks is all one sees, even before small group exercise was allowed. Social distancing? Huh, what’s that? You don’t see it anymore. And the thing that makes me furious, beyond angry, incensed, is that all of these people will just mill around you in the street even when it is clear that you are wearing a mask, you are trying to social distance and they don’t care and come very close to you anyway.

Hey, bozos, if I run into the middle of the street, it’s not for my physical safety, that’s for sure, it’s for health reasons. FYI, groups of teenage skateboarders and bike riders and families teaching their little children to roller-skate, none of you selfish, callous ingrates own the road and you have no right to the entirety of the road and pavement, you are not even entitled to half of it. Everyone should have space to social distance but it can’t happen when you illegally, arrogantly and coldly take up the whole road with your mass of inhumanity.  Sure, I sound like a crotchety old fogey complaining about the children being unruly in the streets and yes, I am like a caricature, keeping away from them, glaring and muttering nasty things under my breath. But there is a difference between me and an irate, out-of-touch, probably prejudiced senior citizen, grumbling about inconsiderate teenagers. I have no issue with them being out and having fun, I am worried about their unthinking behaviours threatening the lives of those I love. Hello, we are still in a global pandemic with millions of people infected with a lethal virus and hundreds of thousands of people dead. Yeah, your little morning or afternoon ride without a mask and getting too close to others could kill someone else and you don’t care. But I damn well do.

You read a lot these days from experts saying that people outside pose little risk to others, and while that may be true, those not wearing masks and not social distancing show more than just disrespect for the rest of us, they show blatant disregard. It is creepy. We are in an international health crisis right now and flagrantly coming within two metres of someone else is the equivalent of the scary weirdo in the empty cinema who insists on sitting next to you, the only other person there. It is invasive, it is worrying and it is not right. Sure, it is not like that when there are lots of different people using the road and pavement but most of the time it is a large family or group of teenagers or children spread across an entire road. It is this sort of behaviour everywhere that puts everyone else at risk. It is with nightmarish recall that I am thinking back to my mall visit in May, the behaviours were terrible but the positive numbers were just bad, now they are horrendous. That is the problem everywhere when most people just are not bothering anymore, if they ever did, they put the rest of us at risk. So, if you care, you have to be even more vigilant about those around you, when you go outside of your home and especially if you have to go somewhere inside. I might be lucky that I have, and continue to, primarily work from home, but I am being extra vigilant when I have to go out for work meetings and even more careful when I come home. I do this for my loved ones, I wish other people would do it for those they cared for and then we would all be doing better.

Okay, since I started writing this post, the South African numbers have exploded. Literally the only countries worse than us are the United States, Brazil, India and Russia. Seriously when you can only point to four countries with millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of dead, as being in a worse position than you, you are not doing well. Not at all. At the same time the government is looking to further open up the country. That would make sense if anyone was even bothering with measures to contain and prevent the virus, but my fellow citizens are not doing that. Sure, the economy has been flushed down the toilet and is in the process of pouring out into the ocean, but let’s be clear that was happening before the pandemic hit and, in the government’s latest misguided effort to change that fact, they will let more people die. There are no simple answers, I am not saying there are, however letting hundreds of thousands of people get sick, some of whom will die, just to pretend like its going to save an economy that was barely on life-support before this started, is a form of insanity.

Like many other countries, the government has promised billions, in numerous forms, to both fight the pandemic and to support those who lost jobs or are vulnerable. Sounds good, yet we couldn’t afford this before, how exactly can the country pay for this when fewer people have jobs to enable them to pay tax? However, in typical South African fashion, all of this has led to looting by those in power. They are awarding tenders to their relatives, their friends or themselves, only usually to deliver nothing at all, while pocketing millions. Same story, different pandemic. It makes me sick – metaphorically, of course. I’m physically fine.

In addition to the circular gravy train those in government have hopped aboard with more alacrity than ever before (if that is actually possible), governments in South Africa are indiscriminately evicting people from government land and tearing down their homes in the most violent and degrading way possible. In Cape Town they unapologetically rip a man naked from his home, tear down his shack and assault him and then accuse the man of setting the whole thing up for publicity. One of the most perverse things I have seen or heard lately, if not ever, and there is a lot competing for that honour at the moment. From the braindead behaviours in both this country and around the world to the racism and bigotry flourishing in the United States and elsewhere, things are not looking good right now in 2020.

I think we would all like a do-over for this year. I think we would all like a revamp in our politicians too. All of them. Everywhere. Other than Jacinda Ardern, she is the only exception. Yoh, Jacinda, what can you do for the rest of us? Um, nothing, radio silence? Too big of a landfill, even you can’t fix that much crap? Such a shame.

A pity no one is currently allowing the export of common sense, there is definitely a pandemic shortage on that one. Did everyone panic buy all the common sense when they were loading their trolleys with toilet paper in March? But then why do people still have toilet rolls but so few are exhibiting a functioning brain? These are the deep philosophical questions of the time. I don’t have the answer, nevertheless people far above my pay grade are not even confronting the questions. Any of them.

So, what is my point, in this post, within what was once merely a humorous travel blog? Well, I am trying to articulate my reactions, my feelings, my observations and my thoughts over the past couple of months in the face of a global health crisis and the woeful manner in which my country and the world is dealing with it. It might seem like I am finally having a negative response to the lockdown, to the isolation and to fear. However, that is not the case at all. I feel exactly the same about these things as I did before. I am just having a typically contemptuous and pessimistic reaction to what other people and governments are doing as time has gone on. In case this was not clear in previous posts, when the going gets really tough, I dig myself in and start making cynical comments and when things get worse, I just get angry and begin to get aggressive, extremely aggressive. When it comes to coping with the daily demands of the pandemic, I am as stoic as I was before. If there is any change it would be in my heightened paranoia when engaging with the outside world, because I have both fear and care for my loved ones who are at risk. Practically the only change is that during the height of our first wave, and admittedly in the heart of winter, I have foregone my daily runs in favour of video workouts desperately conducted in my passage or the tiny square of space between the walls, my chair, couch and coffee table in my lounge. So, another reason to be angry at the non-mask wearing idiots out there who have stolen away my current favourite exercise. (See aggressive lashing out, my trademark.) Right now, you must excuse me while I go and do a YouTube Muay Thai workout in my passage while trying not to annoy my neighbours and then furiously scrub my hands after all the push ups. The highlight of any day in 2020.